TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- In a corner of Bryant-Denny Stadium, Alabama wide receivers and running backs catch short passes from an assistant coach in a pregame drill. Each player, oblivious to the spectacle and noise surrounding them in the stands, snatches the ball and immediately puts it high and tight to his chest to prevent fumbles.

In another part of the end zone, offensive linemen practice exploding out of their stance, pulling their heads back and shooting their arms out, so defensive lineman can't grab them by the shoulder pads.

In another area on the grass, linebackers practice getting their near foot and near shoulder into a ballcarrier and their heads across the front of the runner and reaching up to grab his jersey from behind to practice wrapping up the runner in a drill.

And you thought Alabama football practice was closed to the public.

The fundamentals the Crimson Tide players showed in warm-ups before the game with Mississippi State, as the crowd swelled to 101,821, are the fundamentals Alabama practices with each workout during the week. The fans have been allowed into the realm of 'Bama ball and might not have known it.

It is football with a granular approach, and it is the essence of Alabama football. The Tide have relied on deep talent and first-round draft picks, but they're hard-coached. It is equal parts height, weight, speed and being dutiful to the game's fundamentals.

"That's the No. 1 thing we focus on ... trying to get guys to play with good footwork, good fundamentals," coach Nick Saban says.

If you are not convinced Alabama wins with the basics, look at this year's team, which is ranked No. 1 and is 8-0 heading into Saturday's game at No. 5 LSU (8 p.m. ET).

This Crimson Tide team is not going to dominate the first 32 picks of the 2013 draft like Alabama did in 2011 and 2012, when it had eight overall first-rounders.

Yet this team is holding opponents to eight points a game and scoring an average of 40.

"They don't have a blue-chipper on the front line, they don't have a Mark Barron at safety patrolling the back of the defense, but what they have is a slew of good football players who have been coached to a level where they play like blue-chippers," says Phil Savage, the executive director of the Senior Bowl and a former NFL scout and executive.

"The sheer, basic components of carrying the ball, using their hands blocking, or on defense, their eye control and tackling, are all fundamentals, and fundamentals absolutely have everything to do with their success."

Saban's way is to coach the fundamentals better than his peers and to demand a high level of execution. It is also part of the process, a word heard often at Alabama. His players say he demands so much but gives much in return.

"You come in 17 and 18 years old, and you don't know anything," left guard Chance Warmack says. "They teach you all this stuff, and you don't understand at first that you are ahead of most people after that first year. You think everybody is doing it. You see other teams and you see they are not doing it, and that's when you start appreciating it."

For instance, Warmack says, his first move out of his stance, run or pass, is to get his arms inside his shoulder pads, put his head back, and thrust those hands into the chest plate of the defender. He stood and demonstrated the technique, and it looked like he was driving a car.

"My hands are on his steering wheel, and I'm moving him," Warmack says as he holds his arms out and moves them. "Just so you know, it's incredibly hard to do. It's a hand game. It's all about who gets their hands in there first to steer the other guy. That's fundamentals, I assure you.

"As far as other colleges, teams, we're thinking everybody's doing it; they're not. This is all we know."

Warmack says linemen work on the "bag drills," where small bags are set on the ground and they have to step around them quickly to teach footwork. There are chutes, or low-hanging blankets, set up for the linemen to work under in the drill to practice staying low and bending at the knee, not at the waist.

On defense, Alabama builds a wall up front against the run game and forces the ball to bounce outside, east and west. Safety Robert Lester, who is 210 pounds, will be asked to come down into the tackling box and take on a 300-pound pulling guard. He should be easily washed out of the play by the 90-pound disadvantage.

Lester puts his near foot and near shoulder forward into a ready position and braced. He bends a knee and explodes up through his hip as the guard tries to bash him. Lester is ready because of the repetitions of "The Boss Drill."

"If you come in any kind of way that offensive lineman will boss you around," Lester says. "But if you use near leg, near shoulder, and use your legs to support you, he can't move you anywhere. You can take on that block, make that running back go a different direction, and not let that one-on-one take you out of the play."

"We practice that a lot."

Linebacker C.J. Mosley says Alabama has four different drills focusing on techniques for creating fumbles. Conversely, Alabama running backs practice running with the ball held high and tight against their breast plate and to carry it on their outside shoulder away from contact.

The statistics are revealing. In the last 62 games, the running backs in Alabama's top two rotation have lost five fumbles in 1,286 carries.

There are fundamentals involved in how the Alabama defense fits together. For instance, the Crimson Tide divide the field in thirds in pass defense and use these dividers to steer receivers, no matter how fast, into areas where there is double coverage. There is a fundamental associated with defensive backs using body position as leverage.

The "thud" drill in practice teaches tacklers to reach up and through a ballcarrier and use two hands to grab the back of the jersey and wrap up, not the sides. The Crimson Tide do not get blitzed by spread offenses, such as those used by Arkansas and Missouri, because their players can use this technique to tackle in space. The defense is never on a roller coaster created by defending the spread because of tackling fundamentals, which include not slowing down to make a sure tackle, but going full speed through a ballcarrier.

Alabama practices tackling every day during the season like baseball players take batting practice every day during the season.

"I have figured out that everybody on this level of college football has talent, and you need something other than talent to separate you," Lester says.

"If you don't have good fundamentals, you have nothing," Warmack says, "I don't know what players in other programs believe, but that's what we believe. It's a standard of how we play the game."